Just Getting Started

Fans of heralded crooner Bennett will revel in this inviting charming book. As Bennett heads into his 91st year, he affectionately recalls the many places (San Francisco; Queens, N.Y.) and various people (Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Jackie Kennedy, Maurice Chevalier, and Charlie Chaplin, among others) whose work or friendship has shaped him over the years. Calling the recording of "Body and Soul" he did with Amy Winehouse one of the favorites of his career, he asks himself whether there's anything he could have said that day to pull her back from addiction. He praises Winehouse for taking the spirit of jazz and making it shine in new ways, recalling that her memory "reminds me of how the music we bring to our lives goes on and on in those we love." From Pablo Picasso's paintings, Bennett, also a painter, hopes he's learned to bring to his singing a "clear, elegant, and simple line that invites audiences to open their hearts and minds." Bennett's mother, Anna Suraci Benedetto, taught him to "hold out for quality" to produce something enduring. In these beguiling portraits, Bennett warmly remembers of the deep influences on his life. (Nov.)